It’s a let down. After all the anticipation, the training, to have it stop, be over, is a let down. The amazing high of knowing i was going to finish knowing i was this close to the end and then passing that line, how could i not feel deflated after? What is going to give me a thrill like this again? A sense of accomplishment, achievement? What?
After a desultory dinner of spaghetti and marina sauce topped with tasteless shaved cheese (not grated, shaved. Reminds me of my shin with the thin layer of flesh shaved off) tossed salad and coffee and cake (no tea. Only oddballs drink tea. I can make tea in my room later) the North Florida Chapter of the National MS Society makes a few announcements, not wanting to step on any toes, the usual sort of thing...except it's not usual at all.
they list the various reasons people take part in this charity fundraising event: family member or friend afflicted with MS, near one who has died, actually diagnosed, believer in the cause or a personal statement of strength and challenge. We are asked to rise as our reason is announced, snap the glow stick left on the table and raise. The dark room is awash in blue light. The lights remind me of small limbs, small arm or leg bones, swaying gently in the dark room, much as a person with MS will lose control of his/her limbs and wobble, perhaps fall, the individual lights are lowered, laid down on the table of hung around necks. many of the riders are crying. am i? no comment.
The room is still full. Dinner is over, announcements made and honorifics given out. cyclists and their families wander the room, reliving the days events, their training regimes and what they'll do differently the next day, if they are planning to ride. There is a one day option for the MS150, which about a third of the riders elect to do, not wanting or able to give up a whole weekend with their loved ones.
The riders are a diverse group, from 22 states and 3 foreign countries. Perhaps 3/4 of the riders are male, which surprises me. Recreational cycling is a male sport, whether it is because of the time or money involved or because women can’t find mentors to help them, give them tips to be comfortable and train, I don’t know. I do it and I feel it and I have no one to discuss this with, no woman who has cycled longer or harder than I have to tell me what will help with the female specific discomforts. I look around, recognizing some of the faces from the day. The family at the next table didn’t meet at the hotel; they rode down on two tandem bikes, mom, dad and the 2 kids. Over there? A group of recumbents, a university team, a business team, a family reunion. It is a patchwork, more colorful than the room holding our bikes for the night.
Talking to various groups, finding other ‘virgins’ we discuss our preparation. I seem to have the unique honor of having the shortest, most intense training regime with the highest number of cuts-n-bruises of any other newbie I meet. The consensus is 6 to 8 months of increasing time on road racers, going from 30 miles per ride (mpr) to 70 mpr over a few months. My two months of 10 mpr to 45 mpr provokes horror, although my fellow cyclists seem to find my scrapes (shin, shoulder, ankle) and contussions (left thigh) rather appealing. it reminds me of MSR and the way the women would ooh and ahh over the men's bruises or GMSMA members comparing whipmarks. to each their own...
No interest in the bar, head back to my hotel to sleep. Breakfast is 6 am, 7 am take off again. Wait a sec. I just did 90 miles. I’m going to do that again? AM I OUT OF MY GOURD? I open the window on the terrace and watch the moon, listening to the breakers. They sing, ‘teshuva, tefila, tzedukah, that is why you are here.’ The crashing waves remind me of the blowing of the shofar. And I fall asleep.
In the morning, restless, I ride in circles, then decide to take off. I hear the Pledge of Allegiance recited and The Star Spangled Banner being sung in the now faint dark behind me. A few groups have already ridden off, they’ll reach the finish point at perhaps 10:15, keeping a 24 mph pace. These are road racers and century riders. I’ll be happy if I get in. Whenever I get in. After all, it’s not a race, it’s a ride. My challenge is personal to see if I can finish, not to beat an arbitrary clock or the rider to my left. I set a goal, made a promise to my readers, to myself and I intend to keep that promise.
As soon as I assume the position and take off, I know something is wrong. Despite copious amounts of anti-chafing cream to my bottom, thighs and shorts liner (AsMaster and butt'r chamois creams are popular brands) I am raw. And it hurts. Oh boy, does it hurt! I can’t get comfortable on my bike seat. I have to ride 86 miles and I am in agony, my skin rubbed right off, no drugstore in sight and no topical painkillers in the med buckets. What to do, what to do?
Ride.
What choice do I have? SAG out? [SAG out: Support and Gear will transport injured or tired riders and their equipment to the nearest reststop to await transport to the finish area] i have too much pride for that. and i have a mission. if i have to crawl, i'll cross that line, but i am NOT going to SAG out.
I ride. I find a group with a speed that matches my own and a pedaling cadence that I feel comfortable with. I watch the knees rise and fall, a long line of knees, pedaling, pausing, pedaling, pausing, and slide in, taking advantage of the draft and the rhythm riding with a group forces me into. This will be the best thing for me, enabling me to reach the end. I won’t have to concentrate on keeping my timing, I’ll be able to look around, admire the clouds, the shadows AND HUNT FOR A DRUG STORE FOR SOME *^&%(*#o@ TOPICAL PAINKILLERS.
i try to ignore the pain that knifes through my groin with each downstroke of the pedals. today's mantra "you'll live. it's only pain. you can can handle this. up down up down." it's hard to keep my shoulders relaxed because of the pain. i can feel it stealing energy from me and i'm afraid. i know i'll finish, but wonder how long it will take this abrasion to heal? and how do i even explain it to a medic? well, at least my GP is a sports doctor. and my OB/GYN has seen much worse...
Did you know that convenience stores, which seem to carry everything, do NOT carry topical painkillers? I rack my brain, trying to come up with a substitute. At the 44 mile stop, halfway there, I speak to the medic: "I need a numbing cream. You sure this will do the trick?" the medic offers me some Biofreeze, telling me it’ll numb whatever it is that needs numbing. I look at the small greenish glob "are you SURE this will do it? i just want to be numbed." A pair of women cyclists tap my arm: "Where are you planning to use that?" Embarrassed, I mutter that my crotch is kinda sore, i have an abrasion... One cyclist takes out a small tube of butt’r, says to use that, NOT the BioFreeze, it would kill me. The other cyclist pouts, says, "Oh but it would have been fun to hear her scream when it went from numbing cold to blazing hot in about 30 seconds. You didn’t know BioFreeze was another IcyHot gel?" I swallow, visualizing the knife in my groin becoming a shredding machine and whisper my thanks. i slip my goo covered fingers inside my shorts to apply the gunk to my loins. Done. Relief. Bliss.
It doesn’t last long. But that’s alright because I find a truck stop which carries Oragel. If it’s good enough for a baby’s mouth, then it’s good enough for my crotch.
And it was. OMG, the absence of pain is a beautiful thing. I can evaluate its intensity by the difference in my whole demeanor and ability to move once it stopped. It reminded me of when I was in labor with my first-born. After 8 hours of back labor, 90 second contractions only 3 minutes apart (again, an analogy which men cannot fully commiserate with, the closest parallel being pack pain or sciatica), it stopped. Like snapping off a light switch, it just stopped and I was able to coast, reveling in the pleasures of the human body and the wonder that is the central nervous system.
I ride. I ride some more. I ride up bridges, which do not bother me at all as I am too busy thinking about my nether regions at the time to be concerned with panic attacks. I ride down small inclines. I ride into the wind. I ride under tree limbed canopies. And I clock miles. Checking my odometer, I had perhaps two or three miles to go, so I fly, left turn, straight, right turn, left turn, right turn and under that banner, that banner with one word on it: FINISH.
I was done. Over. It was over. For this year. I stowed my bike in the car. And registered for MS150 2009.
But I wasn’t done, not quite yet. I still had to get home. Wandering around, the fully occupied massage tent, sore muscles being pummeled into shape, the medic and bike repair tents, empty except for staff, the musician tent, and the largest of all, the Bubba Burger tent, where we could consume as many burgers as our calorie starved bodies could hold. I ate one, a whole burger, but would have been better off confining myself to the lettuce and tomato, I think. I’m not used to eating that much red meat at a sitting any longer, a whole 5 or 6 oz. of chopped meat. My stomach clenched in rebellion, or perhaps it was muscle cramping from the sudden inactivity after five hours of pedaling. Perhaps.
Driving home, it struck me. There were over 2200 cyclists in this one event, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society holds 100 of these each year, including in my home towns of New York and Orlando. Not every event is two days nor do they each attract as many riders. Yet they require support: the NMSS, the NFMS, volunteers to do paperwork, cook, clean, serve, clean up, medical personnel, bike shops, SAG teams. There are as many of them as there were of us, and without this group of unrecognized persons, the people that don’t get the applause, silly necklaces, nutritious but disgusting granola bars, none of this would be possible.
Without your support it wouldn’t be possible.
I drove home, thinking about this world so much larger than myself, each individual trying to help, to achieve a small bit of grace by going outside him/herself and started to shake. How many degrees of separation are there in this, as in all things? None. Not a one. I drove my car, the same roads I’d ridden the day before, powered by my legs and will, knowing I played a small part in fighting this disease that steals the ability to power legs but leaves the will whole, to be frustrated over and over until all that will can control is one finger.
One of the few times I hit my kids, my oldest was pretending she couldn’t walk, that she required a wheelchair. "Don’t you EVER do that. Your aunt has a withered leg and SHE doesn’t use a wheelchair. You be grateful that you CAN walk or dance or whatever and don’t you EVER make believe that you can’t walk again." How prophetic.
I remember and think of all those who can’t dance and I cry. It’s cathartic, after the highs of the weekend, to cry. I cry for about 15 miles, from when I pass Daytona, the ending point of Day One and the beginning point of Day Two, until I am well onto I4, quiet tears. When I get home, I sleep.
